Archive for the ‘ezine’ Category

I had signed up for a great ezine this time – Cupids workshop by Lisa Pace. Its done but such good ideas. This is just one of them!

This is my interpretation of the heart pockets. Lisa’s is beautiful but since I am shipping mine I left off the paper flowers she glued on. Also I want mine to last a LONG time so no glue in the process for me (although there are some really good fabric glues out there that should work too) so I hand embroidered (did the big letters with chain stitch, the little with split stitch) the words and machine sewed my hearts together. For the machine sewing I used a double stitch and I used another Superior Thread that is varigated.

These are STUFFED now with candy hearts (ok dove chocolate and Reeces hearts) and iTune cards. (Teenage girls are very easy to shop for I think – they ALWAYS want itune cards for instance.) So – that is why they are somewhat odd shaped? And hopefully you can see the HEART shaped button on Suzanne’s heart (for sweet HEART, get it?).

Also I lucked out at some point and found a victorican scroll rotary blade by Fiskers. I used that to cut the inside heart. I didn’t ant to try to work the outside heart to match so I just cut those plain. Lisa used pinking shears on both hers – and its beautiful but I like rotary cutters and can’t figure out where my pinking blade is at the moment. So this worked out well I think.

Lisa did the hand embroidery on hers – in the same color tone as the heart itself so it was hard to see the word. I did my embroidery floss to match the back heart instead (did the big letters with chain stitch, the little with split stitch). Also rather than just the word LOVE on mine I chose to pick a word with the same first letter as each niece. Easy for Laura – Love. Came up with Sweetheart for Suzanne and by replacing the heart word with a button heart I figure it works. For Emily – well thats a tough one so I went with Enjoy!

The backs have a similar button on them for each. Can’t have those plain right?

Its a lot of fun. I have finished the first project and am working on the second. I think I am supposed to post these in the yahoo group or such. That will have to wait until this weekend. In the meantime here is the first journal! Way simpler than I thought too, or else Sue is great at written instructions or perhaps both?

I love this journal! First – the fabric is one of my favorites – it reminds me of Dad’s measuring ruler, right down the the color. Then I used one of Superior Threads great threads – this is one their Rainbow series. Don’t you love the way it flows through shades of yellow/gold?

Best of all I now know what a SIGNATURE is. I learned that last summer in Josie’s classes at ArtUnraveled. And that is probably where I got hooked on making journals too. And here I had only signed up for her two classes to learn soldering and metal etching (one journal had a glass soldered cover and the other had an etched cover).

The next journal is great also because the ‘signatures’ are removable/replaceable. Oh – perhaps I should state that a signature is a group of papers, usually folded in half, and stitched in the middle to the book. So as a rank beginner it seems that the # of pages in one signature might be 6 to 12 range (after folding), and that the hand made journals I have worked on or looked at might have 3 to 5 signatures in them.

The Teresa McFayden Mosaic journal was such a fun project I had to try it with fabrics. So my first take was the same type of process as the paper attempt earlier this month. Slight problem – look at the photo to see if you can tell…

Yep, when I glue the fabric down it becomes semi transparent and I could see the green and white design in the cover. I should have put a solid piece down and then added this. Lesson learned.

So I thought let me try doing something like that but I was looking at the pile of miscut strips of fabric already so I came up with this:

I did a basket weave instead!

Here it is basically finished (I have book binding tape arriving tomorrow and will go over the edge with that to finish this, but it is sealed and glossed now…

I just used the exacto knife to trim it down from the backside after it was all glued and sealed. I use a Euro tupe decoupage product but I am thinking ModPodge would do the same – its not like the fabric is soft – its like really thick paper and hard.

I am signed up for Teresa McFayden’s Sweet Bella – its a project oriented ezine that comes out on Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays for the month of February. This is the third month she has done this. For once I got a project done shortly after Teresa released it!

Teresa said start with a Composition Journal so I did. Remember these?

And I found them in COLORS too!

Then you pick out some scrapbook type papers, tear the heck out of them (talk about a stress reliever), and glue them down. Finally you paint in between (I loved this method!). Easy project.

Recently on Martha Stewart Crafts I saw a project along these lines except they used one image/paper on top. What caught my eye was that they used a sports image – a gift for a man. Also they covered the back and then added nice papers on the inside of the covers. Ah one can keep gluing!